Proceedings of MATSUS Spring 2024 Conference (MATSUS24)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.matsus.2024.287
Publication date: 18th December 2023
Assembling hydrophobic conjugated polymers into water-treatable nanoparticles is an innovative technology with many potential applications in optoelectronics, biology, and medicine. [1][2]
We demonstrate that it is possible to prepare stable water-processable nanoparticles (WPNPs) with good control of the morphology and the domain shape and distribution, exploiting amphiphilic low band gap rod-coil block copolymers (LBG-BCPs). The WPNPs were synthesized by an adapted miniemulsion approach, without surfactants. [3]
The LBG-BCPs consist of a rigid hydrophobic p-type semiconductor polymer, like PCPDTBT or PTB7, and 4-vinylpyridine(4VP)-based coil blocks. The obtained WPNPs are stable in water thanks to the presence of the 4VP-based coil, which improve the WPNPs stability in water without the presence of surfactants. The used copolymers have different molecular structure and length for each BCP used. To make the WPNPs a good material for OPV device active layer, we mixed the LBG-BCPs with an electron acceptor fullerene derivative ([6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyricacid methyl ester, PC61BM) to achieve blend WPNPs (b-WPNPs). The WPNPs and b-WPNPs were fully characterized by TEM, STEM-EDX, EFTEM, AFM, DLS, and z-potential. [4] [5] [6]
The Transmission Electron Microscopy and the micro-analytical technique associated provide information about morphology, and elemental intraparticle distribution with nanometric resolution (STEM-EDX analysis), which allows us to understand how the LBG-BCPs auto-assemble to give WPNPs. In fact, using the sulfur as a maker of the rod components in the LBG-BCPs, we were able to identify that the rods, the most hydrophobic components of the LBG-BCP, prefer staying in the inner part of each WPNP and the coils, which are more hydrophilic, lay at the surface. Moreover, by exploiting the correlation between the plasmon peak position and the variation of the electron density [7], we were able to identify the b-WPNPs-rich and the PCBM-rich areas and the shape of domains by the EFTEM, allowing us to correlate the domain shape and distribution to the material efficiency. [6][8][9]
Project PRIN2022 - Environmental sustainability and recyclability of printable organic solar cells based on water-processable polymer nanoparticles (ENSURE SOLAR) – Prot. 20227PLSF9, funded by the Italian “Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca” (MUR).
Project PRIN2022- MAGnetic Inductive heating of nano-CATalyst onto metal foam as innovative approach for selective aerobic alcohol and polyol oxidation – MAGICAT - Prot. 20225RBM98, funded by the Italian “Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca” (MUR).
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.